Mayor de Blasio, after accusing Gov. Cuomo of not working to unite Democrats in the state Senate, just moved to blow up the unity deal on the table.
With the mayor’s evident blessing, former de Blasio aide Jessica Ramos intends to run in the primary against Queens state Sen. Jose Peralta — a four-term incumbent Democrat already on board with the progressive agenda.
Ramos will likely be one of several progressive challengers to members of the Independent Democratic Caucus, which now includes eight senators who work with the chamber’s Republican majority.
Yet that in-your-face effort risks blowing up Cuomo’s deal to have the IDC return to the mainline Senate Democratic fold next year. (There’s little point in unity right now: The GOP would keep control without the IDC, thanks to Sen. Simcha Felder, who independently caucuses with the Republicans.)
Then again, de Blasio recently mocked Cuomo as being late to the party. “It’s very convenient for him now as he’s apparently running for president to be in good graces with the Democratic Party,” he said. “So now he’s going to move heaven and earth to have a Democratic state Senate.”
And never mind that the gov has had enormous success winning approval of his legislative agenda ($15 minimum wage; “free college” and so on) while working with the GOP-IDC Senate coalition. Or that Democrats managed only disaster and confusion the last time they ran the chamber.
De Blasio, it seems, isn’t interested so much in a Democratic-run Senate as in one that will answer to him.